If you were WOTC/Hasbro and you were trying to squeeze the secondary market (mostly: hobby stores with online presence) so that you could take it over, how would you go about doing it? Without declaring your intention and sparking insane outrage?
The only way to do that is to tank the value of all cards to the point where they're all the same value, and worthless.
If you were WOTC/Hasbro and you were trying to squeeze the secondary market (mostly: hobby stores with online presence) so that you could take it over, how would you go about doing it? Without declaring your intention and sparking insane outrage?
Partner with a private equity firm to set up shell corporation A which, in turn, owns shell corporation B, then use shell B to start having a large presence in the secondary market, buying as much as you can afford in both singles and sealed product. Make the initial budget something along the lines of, oh, $5 million to $10 million (or at lot more, if you can afford it), make people really great offers on your buy list (perhaps something like full value for M/NM, 80% for SP, and 65% for HP), and offer to match any other online seller's price and that should be a good start. Finally, and here is the icing on the cake, have your sales team at WotC convince their bosses over at Hasbro to "force" WotC to abandon the reserved list, allowing reprints of those cards but make them an exclusive offer only through shell corporation B and that should lock most other venues out of the secondary market.
The theory is the next masters set will be created under the paradigm started with the new Challenger decks, and M25 was printed and packed before they Iconic Masters was on shelves. So, I hope that future masters sets are already more balanced and fun AND have less sticker shock.
That being said, I thing M25 would have been a GREAT set without some of the high dollar chase cards, if it meant lowering the per booster price. As a little 25th anniversary set, how awesome would it have been to go a little less blingy, but maybe have 'chase' versions some of the watermarked cards with old frames or alt art. similar to how Unstable had lots of alternate versions of things. But get the pack price down to maybe $6 a booster.
I don't see how we can extrapolate any general process change just from Gavin's comments on the challenger decks. The new paradigm he spoke of has nothing to do with how they put together sets, and is more with how they manage lead time for reprinting what amounts to a rather small subset of Standard-legal cards based on tournament results.
I don't see how we can extrapolate any general process change just from Gavin's comments on the challenger decks. The new paradigm he spoke of has nothing to do with how they put together sets, and is more with how they manage lead time for reprinting what amounts to a rather small subset of Standard-legal cards based on tournament results.
I don't know why he would make a point to say that M25 was packed and ready before Iconic went on sale, and the new development standards should make that turn around time much faster to be able to react to the player bases, unless it mattered for set development. If he was just blowing hot air, that does not bode well for future magic releases.
They just should alow small reprints of cards in the Reserved list, but with new art and as premium in boosters or as player's reward.
Like reprint 5 abu lands as masterpieces in one set then wait some time and reprint as masterpice the other 5 ( with other cards ).
IMO this would be the best. It would not devalue the old duals ( maybe the ones really really Heavily played ). Would create more stock for the market, and it would not really affect the prices cause people would buy to speculate.
IMO do it, alow small reprints, and make a limit like, u can only reprint a card in the Reserved list in 4 years from each reprint of the card. This way players would probably try legacy as well.
Either they're breaking their 'commitment' or they're not. Breaking-it-a-little is pretty much the worst of both worlds - still opens them up to whatever legal proceedings they fear might come from breach of 'contract' without actually getting the financial windfall that fully ditching it would bring. High risk low reward isn't the best way to play.
I just hope "for draft" can stop being the catch-all excuse for intentionally poor sets. This product wants to be a reprint set and a draft set and simultaneously failed at both. Too expensive to draft, too cheap on value to bother with. Next time, make a solid set filled with value and people can draft a mess of powerful reprints if they want. People will draft anything. And guess what, they won't feel remorse afterward, either. Because guess what really screws up a draft? People having to take their rare because it's $50 and pass the rest. Or suffocate pulling 10 cent rares for ten dollars. So this set being "for draft" as the priority was never going to work. Stop trying to be so many different things and just deliver on reprints.
If you were WOTC/Hasbro and you were trying to squeeze the secondary market (mostly: hobby stores with online presence) so that you could take it over, how would you go about doing it? Without declaring your intention and sparking insane outrage?
If Hasbro makes a move to purchase Toys R Us (TRU is on some hard times right now, and their holding company seems content to run it into the ground instead of addressing issues), they would be in a great position to promote game nights/ccg/mtg nights at home or in-store as a national family event.
For me, this set is a real disappointment. When the masters set came out in the fall, I expected a lot because it was billed as being "iconic". And with Masters 25, it was supposed to be a reflection of Magic's 25 years. It really doesn't feel like we are celebrating anything here, just another year of selling booster boxes for Wizards.
I was really looking forward to drafting this set, and playing with a bunch of memorable cards from across the last 25 years of Magic. Now, I could care less about the set.
I don't know simply making an annoucement that everything in this set will be legal in modern out to help the value problem.... Then in future masters products slowly print High end legacy goodies at Mythic.
I personally don't see why everyone is so up in arms over this set. There are plenty of valuable reprints and the set looks like a truly unique, fun set to draft. Obviously it's not perfect, but I'm looking forward to drafting it.
I personally don't see why everyone is so up in arms over this set. There are plenty of valuable reprints and the set looks like a truly unique, fun set to draft. Obviously it's not perfect, but I'm looking forward to drafting it.
Is that you Gavin Verhey?
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
You know, cards that are good in limited ( or useless ) and have a high price due to lack of reprints? Champion's Helm for exemple We have legendaries at uncommon... Try to increse the EV of the box at least a litle make people going to drafts not regret their life decisions on spending $30 on worthless cards. I draft, i like to build the best deck always. For exemple in MM17 i only picked once a value card ( Scalding Tarn on last pack )( and selled for more drafts ) instead of a card that i could use in my deck. I wanted to won the draft for the packs, passed paths and inquisitions over for commons and other uncommons, and one time for rares with low value but great in limited. I even made some gamble on openning loose boosters. With low EV, low good and pricy cards less people will want to draft and more and more it becomes value pick aside from the people that usually do it anyway. But the thing is now We( normal non-pro people) will have to pick the value cards in hopes to at least pay the draft ...
About the tree at MR:
pick one for better MR green slot
I personally don't see why everyone is so up in arms over this set. There are plenty of valuable reprints and the set looks like a truly unique, fun set to draft. Obviously it's not perfect, but I'm looking forward to drafting it.
I wouldn't say I am up in arms, but the set seems to have missed the mark. There are just so many cards missing, that are replaced by random stuff. Things like Fencing Ace, Path of Peace, Thresher Lizard, among others have no place in the set. Also, like some people have already mentioned, there are a few iconic combos in the set, like Hulk Flash, but nothing to really support it. I also see Squadron Hawk, but nothing else to really support CawBlade, not even any notable Equipment, let alone Stoneforge Mystic. Not only that, but I personally would have liked to see a better sampling of abilities from Magic's past. The first card I thought of was Mist Dragon, but I know that is on the RL. So while the RL does make it hard to include a lot of iconic and memorable cards, there are still a lot of options out there.
Yeah there are a lot of cards that don't synergize well in a draft environment. Can't say how the draft synergy is going to play out, given that it can't be drafted yet, it may look super janky but work; We'll see.
I personally don't see why everyone is so up in arms over this set. There are plenty of valuable reprints and the set looks like a truly unique, fun set to draft. Obviously it's not perfect, but I'm looking forward to drafting it.
You sort of hit the nail on the head in what you've said here. Most of the people here aren't interested in drafting it, mostly due to the cost. I can't justify it personally, and I know a lot of people who feel the same. If I'm going to draft, it'll be Conspiracy - lots of fun, specifically tailored to draft, still has reprinted staples for the chance of some lasting value.
The issue is that if you're not swimming in money and wanting to draft, you're here for reprints, and aside from the chase rares, there really isn't a lot of stuff worth here worth spending money on boosters for.
It might well be fun to draft, but I couldn't care, essentially. If it does nothing for my decks long term, I ain't buying packs.
After reading many many comments about M25 on these forums, it is agreed that it largely failed to meet our expectations. I am quite curious to see what Wizards will eventually say about this, knowing already that they admitted that IMA was a dissappointment but subsequently said that M25 will make up for this. Are we being taken for idiots?
After reading many many comments about M25 on these forums, it is agreed that it largely failed to meet our expectations. I am quite curious to see what Wizards will eventually say about this, knowing already that they admitted that IMA was a dissappointment but subsequently said that M25 will make up for this. Are we being taken for idiots?
No, I think they're intentionally using marketing spin to get what they want from the situation. They've put out a lot of statements regarding the 'theme' of the set, and continually drop drafting as the primary play channel. If constructed players are disappointed, they expected the wrong thing.
After reading many many comments about M25 on these forums, it is agreed that it largely failed to meet our expectations. I am quite curious to see what Wizards will eventually say about this, knowing already that they admitted that IMA was a dissappointment but subsequently said that M25 will make up for this. Are we being taken for idiots?
Yes.
They won't say a thing. It will be the next greatest thing since sliced bread. No one admits failure any more.
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Playing since 1994: Currently MAGS (HomeBrew),Standard & Pauper (Pioneer and Modern are degenerate trash formats)
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
I actually agree here. I wouldn't say the cheap ebay boxes are a problem really from my standpoint as a consumer, but I will say them being conservative on the value is unappealing. The only thing I admire about this set is Azusa's Judge Promo art in non-foil and non-curl form, and alternate art Arcane Denial and Angelic Page (not that I don't also love Rebecca Guay's version). Otherwise, I've been cringing this whole spoiler season. At least IMA had home runs with the alternate arts.
What I think happened is that WoTC wanted to figure out a way to reprint commander and old casual cards outside of a commander set and figured they could use the masters series to do it. The only trouble with this is that the demand on commander staples is very different from demand on modern staples. People need 4x Mox Opal in both lantern control and artifact rush, where as commander players only need one Animar, Soul of the Elements or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. When the cards do get reprinted their prices tank and then don't bounce back until maybe two years later. It's for that reason that it is totally plausible to reprint things like the aformentioned commander staples in a normal draft set like battle bond even if the price seems a bit high.
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1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
What I think happened is that WoTC wanted to figure out a way to reprint commander and old casual cards outside of a commander set and figured they could use the masters series to do it. The only trouble with this is that the demand on commander staples is very different from demand on modern staples. People need 4x Mox Opal in both lantern control and artifact rush, where as commander players only need one Animar, Soul of the Elements or Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. When the cards do get reprinted their prices tank and then don't bounce back until maybe two years later. It's for that reason that it is totally plausible to reprint things like the aformentioned commander staples in a normal draft set like battle bond even if the price seems a bit high.
His point is more that reprints of ultra-low supply cards will crater prices that are propped up by their rarity (think ABU, Portal 3 kingdoms type rarity) versus relatively high demand high price cards (Goyf, Lili, fetches, etc) which will just deflate a little.
I think Wizards will adapt from the poor showing that Iconic Masters was and that Masters 25 likely will be, such that the next set will probably have a better mix that stands up to the value proposition.
PURP (formerly known as MTG Purple) on YouTube had a theory that both Masters 25 and Iconic Masters were in development at the same time, and effectively it was one set as it was meant to be the 25th Anniversary set that WotC was working on. So apparently one of the higher ups decided, "Hey why don't we do two Masters sets instead of one to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of MTG?" as they ship 20 to 50,000 cases of these things out into the public as they're not very open about disclosing print run numbers.
Effectively they wanted to double the number of booster boxes they were manufacturing, so why is this so important? Well in Iconic Masters, 15 out of 68 of the Rares and Mythics are above the $9.99 MSRP with it 7 out of the 15 Mythics and only 8 out of 53 of the Rares. That puts your odds at less than 22% of pulling a Rare or Mythic that's going to be worth more value than the actual booster pack. These are reprints which means that 78% of the time it'd had been better for the consumer to buy card singles because it's a lot cheaper than the price of the booster pack.
For example, there was a card reprinted in Masters 25 that's worth 12 cents as the Rare and you'd end up paying $10 for a 12 cent card. That's how bad Masters 25 is. Back in the day Commons were 25 cents, Uncommons were 50 cents, and Rares were a $1.00-$5.00 which was once the standard pricing for MTG cards until the Mythic rarity changed everything with the Reserve List and Power Nine being the main exception. The current prices are absurd when they upshifted it from Uncommon to Rare or Rare to Mythic which is something that WotC does to help stabilize the Secondary Market.
The fact of the matter is that you only have 15 cards in Iconic Masters that are above $9.99. This is really, really bad. This doesn't sell packs, you literally cannot sell this product for $250 which is why it's going on eBay for about $130-$145 where on Amazon it's about $149. There are only 15 cards above the standard MSRP price in Iconic Masters which is $3.99. So If you were to put it all together then you'd have 30 Rares and Mythics above $3.99 MSRP. It means that Iconic Masters would've been a fantastic Summer set printed on demand at $3.99 a pack like with Conspiracy: Take the Crown.
It's not because booster packs are $9.99 each making the set impossible to draft with and that's the problem. So now were going to move over to Masters 25 (a.k.a. Iconic Masters 2.0) where we have 18 out of 68 Rares and Mythics above $9.99 a booster pack with 7 out of 15 Mythics and 11 out of 53 Rares. So your odds right now on Pre-Order for Masters 25 are less than 26% of pulling a card that is worth more than $9.99 a booster pack. You can literally buy all these cards on the Secondary Market for less than the price of these booster packs, why wouldn't you since Masters 25 is Iconic Masters 2.0?
All these reprinted cards in Masters 25 are expected to drop below $9.99 because they don't see a whole lot of play, most of these cards above $20 don't see a lot of play and the only reason why they were so expensive like for example Rishadan Port should've been a $5 land because it was meant to be that Rare land printed into a Commander precon that nobody wanted like with Ash Barrens in Pauper. Rishadan Port's not that great of a card, the only reason why it's so expensive is because it's never been reprinted same with Imperial Recruiter.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor is only $127 because he was unbanned in Modern, it doesn't have as much to do with EV when it gives consumers a reason to buy booster packs. Pulling a foil Jace, the Mind Sculptor when you can actually use him in Modern is important for consumers, then again these Masters sets are effectively gambling. They're whale boxes as it's consumers who just want to gamble on the chance of pulling a Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Imperial Recruiter, Chalice of the Void, and/or Rishadan Port in foil when they're much better off buying them in card singles.
Now If Masters 25's EV had 18 out of 68 Rares and Mythics above $9.99 a booster pack with the odds of pulling 7 out of 15 Mythics and 11 out of 53 Rares being about 26% then the set actually would've sold which would put it on par with Modern Masters 2017 and Eternal Masters. Another thing that's holding Masters 25 back is the land cycle they chose being the Enemy Filters from Eventide which are pretty popular in Commander as they would've been better off reprinting the Allied/Enemy Fetches instead which would've been strong enough to hold their value.
So with Masters 25 you could've had 35 Rares and Mythics above $3.99 a booster pack which would've been a fantastic summer set printed on demand. MTG customers would've really liked the idea of every Rare and Mythic in a Masters set actually being worth more than the price of the booster pack. The main reason why it didn't happen with Masters 25 and Iconic Masters was because they were afraid of destroying the Secondary Market by being too conservative with their reprint choices.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
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The only way to do that is to tank the value of all cards to the point where they're all the same value, and worthless.
it'll never happen.
Partner with a private equity firm to set up shell corporation A which, in turn, owns shell corporation B, then use shell B to start having a large presence in the secondary market, buying as much as you can afford in both singles and sealed product. Make the initial budget something along the lines of, oh, $5 million to $10 million (or at lot more, if you can afford it), make people really great offers on your buy list (perhaps something like full value for M/NM, 80% for SP, and 65% for HP), and offer to match any other online seller's price and that should be a good start. Finally, and here is the icing on the cake, have your sales team at WotC convince their bosses over at Hasbro to "force" WotC to abandon the reserved list, allowing reprints of those cards but make them an exclusive offer only through shell corporation B and that should lock most other venues out of the secondary market.
Possible? Sure. Likely? Of course not.
I don't see how we can extrapolate any general process change just from Gavin's comments on the challenger decks. The new paradigm he spoke of has nothing to do with how they put together sets, and is more with how they manage lead time for reprinting what amounts to a rather small subset of Standard-legal cards based on tournament results.
I don't know why he would make a point to say that M25 was packed and ready before Iconic went on sale, and the new development standards should make that turn around time much faster to be able to react to the player bases, unless it mattered for set development. If he was just blowing hot air, that does not bode well for future magic releases.
Like reprint 5 abu lands as masterpieces in one set then wait some time and reprint as masterpice the other 5 ( with other cards ).
IMO this would be the best. It would not devalue the old duals ( maybe the ones really really Heavily played ). Would create more stock for the market, and it would not really affect the prices cause people would buy to speculate.
IMO do it, alow small reprints, and make a limit like, u can only reprint a card in the Reserved list in 4 years from each reprint of the card. This way players would probably try legacy as well.
Right?! Talk about a master of no trades.
If Hasbro makes a move to purchase Toys R Us (TRU is on some hard times right now, and their holding company seems content to run it into the ground instead of addressing issues), they would be in a great position to promote game nights/ccg/mtg nights at home or in-store as a national family event.
But the biggest let down is the absence of a huge chunk of Magic's past. It's not even cards of high value, I mean where is Kird Ape, Psychatog, Fire // Ice, Howling Mine, Zuran Orb, Splinter Twin, and so on? And than there are all the money cards that had a huge impact on the game like Tarmogoyf, Cavern of Souls, Mana Drain, ect..
I was really looking forward to drafting this set, and playing with a bunch of memorable cards from across the last 25 years of Magic. Now, I could care less about the set.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
Is that you Gavin Verhey?
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
You know, cards that are good in limited ( or useless ) and have a high price due to lack of reprints? Champion's Helm for exemple We have legendaries at uncommon... Try to increse the EV of the box at least a litle make people going to drafts not regret their life decisions on spending $30 on worthless cards. I draft, i like to build the best deck always. For exemple in MM17 i only picked once a value card ( Scalding Tarn on last pack )( and selled for more drafts ) instead of a card that i could use in my deck. I wanted to won the draft for the packs, passed paths and inquisitions over for commons and other uncommons, and one time for rares with low value but great in limited. I even made some gamble on openning loose boosters. With low EV, low good and pricy cards less people will want to draft and more and more it becomes value pick aside from the people that usually do it anyway. But the thing is now We( normal non-pro people) will have to pick the value cards in hopes to at least pay the draft ...
About the tree at MR:
pick one for better MR green slot
But the true elephant in the room is Why didn't they reprint Laboratory Maniac in this?
They should have choose it over Bident for a rare.
I wouldn't say I am up in arms, but the set seems to have missed the mark. There are just so many cards missing, that are replaced by random stuff. Things like Fencing Ace, Path of Peace, Thresher Lizard, among others have no place in the set. Also, like some people have already mentioned, there are a few iconic combos in the set, like Hulk Flash, but nothing to really support it. I also see Squadron Hawk, but nothing else to really support CawBlade, not even any notable Equipment, let alone Stoneforge Mystic. Not only that, but I personally would have liked to see a better sampling of abilities from Magic's past. The first card I thought of was Mist Dragon, but I know that is on the RL. So while the RL does make it hard to include a lot of iconic and memorable cards, there are still a lot of options out there.
BUWGRChilds PlayGRWUB
BUWGR Highlander GRWUB
UBSquee's Shapeshifting PetBU
BW Multiplayer Control WB
RG Changeling GR
UR Mana FlareRU
UMerfolkU
B MBMC B
Squadron Hawk is part of this set's six "Draft me in multiples!" commons for draft. Squadron Hawk, Accumulated Knowledge, Relentless Rats, Kindle, Timberpack Wolf, and Self-Assembler.
(W/U)(B/R)GForm of Progenitus, Shape of a Scrubland
BRGJund Tokens with Prossh, the Magic Dragon Foil
URGAnimar, the RUG CleanerFoil
RRRFeldon of the Third Path 2.0 Foil
BG(B/G)Not Another Meren DeckFoil
UR(U/R)Mizzix, Y Control and X Burn Spells
(W/U)(B/R)GHarold Ramos - The 35 Foot Long Twinkie (In +1/+1 counters)
UB(U/B)Dragonlord Silumgar
You sort of hit the nail on the head in what you've said here. Most of the people here aren't interested in drafting it, mostly due to the cost. I can't justify it personally, and I know a lot of people who feel the same. If I'm going to draft, it'll be Conspiracy - lots of fun, specifically tailored to draft, still has reprinted staples for the chance of some lasting value.
The issue is that if you're not swimming in money and wanting to draft, you're here for reprints, and aside from the chase rares, there really isn't a lot of stuff worth here worth spending money on boosters for.
It might well be fun to draft, but I couldn't care, essentially. If it does nothing for my decks long term, I ain't buying packs.
No, I think they're intentionally using marketing spin to get what they want from the situation. They've put out a lot of statements regarding the 'theme' of the set, and continually drop drafting as the primary play channel. If constructed players are disappointed, they expected the wrong thing.
Yes.
They won't say a thing. It will be the next greatest thing since sliced bread. No one admits failure any more.
STOP using "dude/bro" as a pejorative or insult. Grow up.
Margaret Thatcher: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people's money.”
Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
Martin Luther King Jr.: "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL6jL5H5gB8
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
"Cancel Culture is the real reason why everyone's not allowed to have nice things anymore." - Anonymous
"For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?" - Mark 8:36
"Most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution." - Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
"Every life decision is always a risk / reward proposition." - Sanjay Gupta
|| UW Jace, Vyn's Prodigy UW || UG Kenessos, Priest of Thassa (feat. Arixmethes) UG ||
Cards I still want to see created:
|| Olantin, Lost City || Pavios and Thanasis || Choryu ||
1. (Ravnica Allegiance): You can't keep a good esper control deck down... Or Wilderness Reclamation... or Gates...
2. (War of the Spark): Guys, I know what we need! We need a cycle of really idiotic flavor text victory cards! Jace's Triumph...
3. (War of the Spark): Lets make the format with control have even more control!
Unfortunately this is true. SaffronOlive hit on this point earlier, but in a slightly different take.
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/not-all-reprints-are-created-equal
His point is more that reprints of ultra-low supply cards will crater prices that are propped up by their rarity (think ABU, Portal 3 kingdoms type rarity) versus relatively high demand high price cards (Goyf, Lili, fetches, etc) which will just deflate a little.
I think Wizards will adapt from the poor showing that Iconic Masters was and that Masters 25 likely will be, such that the next set will probably have a better mix that stands up to the value proposition.
Effectively they wanted to double the number of booster boxes they were manufacturing, so why is this so important? Well in Iconic Masters, 15 out of 68 of the Rares and Mythics are above the $9.99 MSRP with it 7 out of the 15 Mythics and only 8 out of 53 of the Rares. That puts your odds at less than 22% of pulling a Rare or Mythic that's going to be worth more value than the actual booster pack. These are reprints which means that 78% of the time it'd had been better for the consumer to buy card singles because it's a lot cheaper than the price of the booster pack.
For example, there was a card reprinted in Masters 25 that's worth 12 cents as the Rare and you'd end up paying $10 for a 12 cent card. That's how bad Masters 25 is. Back in the day Commons were 25 cents, Uncommons were 50 cents, and Rares were a $1.00-$5.00 which was once the standard pricing for MTG cards until the Mythic rarity changed everything with the Reserve List and Power Nine being the main exception. The current prices are absurd when they upshifted it from Uncommon to Rare or Rare to Mythic which is something that WotC does to help stabilize the Secondary Market.
The fact of the matter is that you only have 15 cards in Iconic Masters that are above $9.99. This is really, really bad. This doesn't sell packs, you literally cannot sell this product for $250 which is why it's going on eBay for about $130-$145 where on Amazon it's about $149. There are only 15 cards above the standard MSRP price in Iconic Masters which is $3.99. So If you were to put it all together then you'd have 30 Rares and Mythics above $3.99 MSRP. It means that Iconic Masters would've been a fantastic Summer set printed on demand at $3.99 a pack like with Conspiracy: Take the Crown.
It's not because booster packs are $9.99 each making the set impossible to draft with and that's the problem. So now were going to move over to Masters 25 (a.k.a. Iconic Masters 2.0) where we have 18 out of 68 Rares and Mythics above $9.99 a booster pack with 7 out of 15 Mythics and 11 out of 53 Rares. So your odds right now on Pre-Order for Masters 25 are less than 26% of pulling a card that is worth more than $9.99 a booster pack. You can literally buy all these cards on the Secondary Market for less than the price of these booster packs, why wouldn't you since Masters 25 is Iconic Masters 2.0?
All these reprinted cards in Masters 25 are expected to drop below $9.99 because they don't see a whole lot of play, most of these cards above $20 don't see a lot of play and the only reason why they were so expensive like for example Rishadan Port should've been a $5 land because it was meant to be that Rare land printed into a Commander precon that nobody wanted like with Ash Barrens in Pauper. Rishadan Port's not that great of a card, the only reason why it's so expensive is because it's never been reprinted same with Imperial Recruiter.
Jace, the Mind Sculptor is only $127 because he was unbanned in Modern, it doesn't have as much to do with EV when it gives consumers a reason to buy booster packs. Pulling a foil Jace, the Mind Sculptor when you can actually use him in Modern is important for consumers, then again these Masters sets are effectively gambling. They're whale boxes as it's consumers who just want to gamble on the chance of pulling a Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Imperial Recruiter, Chalice of the Void, and/or Rishadan Port in foil when they're much better off buying them in card singles.
Now If Masters 25's EV had 18 out of 68 Rares and Mythics above $9.99 a booster pack with the odds of pulling 7 out of 15 Mythics and 11 out of 53 Rares being about 26% then the set actually would've sold which would put it on par with Modern Masters 2017 and Eternal Masters. Another thing that's holding Masters 25 back is the land cycle they chose being the Enemy Filters from Eventide which are pretty popular in Commander as they would've been better off reprinting the Allied/Enemy Fetches instead which would've been strong enough to hold their value.
So with Masters 25 you could've had 35 Rares and Mythics above $3.99 a booster pack which would've been a fantastic summer set printed on demand. MTG customers would've really liked the idea of every Rare and Mythic in a Masters set actually being worth more than the price of the booster pack. The main reason why it didn't happen with Masters 25 and Iconic Masters was because they were afraid of destroying the Secondary Market by being too conservative with their reprint choices.
"Restriction breeds creativity." - Sheldon Menery on EDH / Commander in Magic: The Gathering
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